Jasper-Declan MacDermott

Name: Jasper-Declan MacDermott

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: 12th

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Skating, running, swimming, painting

Appearance: Jasper-Declan is impossible to miss- at 6'4", he towers over most of his classmates. He weighs 161 pounds, a bit below average- he has the small but muscular build of a runner. His skin is naturally fairly light, but during the summer months it darkens quickly to a light brown. His eyes are a clouded grey-green, and relatively thin and small, giving him an odd, exotic appearance. His nose is slightly large and is shaped at a right angle. His lips are thin and generally quite chapped.

Jasper-Declan's hair is long, lank and cut incredibly messily. He generally lets his hair grow long and, when he becomes bored of it, chops it off haphazardly in his bathroom with a pair of old scissors. As a result, different parts of his hair end up at different lengths- though luckily for him, choppy layers are in vogue, and people tend to think it was done professionally. His hair is a dark, sandy blonde in color, and at the time of his senior trip it had grown just past his shoulders. He sometimes wears it in a lazily done, loose ponytail, but often doesn't bother.

Jasper-Declan is mostly apathetic about his wardrobe- he basically wears what his parents buy him, which means a lot of button-down shirts, vests, slacks, and jeans. He does have a habit of painting on his clothes, and while his parents try to wash the paint out, most of his clothes end up paint-stained. He wears a plain gold ring on an even plainer silver chain around his neck- the only memento he has of his birth mother, though he attaches no real sentimental value to it and wears it mostly out of habit. He loves big, loose-knit hats, and has a particular olive-green one that he wears a lot of the time. He also has a habit of customizing things via fabric scraps and safety pins, and he keeps a small collection of bandannas. He wears the same pair of badly beaten, painted and drawn on black Converse every day.

Biography: Jasper-Declan was born in New York City to Alexis Petralia, a 24 year old, single and homeless woman, and an unknown father. Knowing full well that she wouldn't be capable of taking care of the baby, she put him up for adoption, leaving him with a plain gold ring that had been her father's wedding band, and the name Jasper. He was soon adopted by Bridget and Connor MacDermott, a middle class, Irish-Catholic family. Bridget was incapable of having children of her own, and Jasper was her second adopted child, the first being Audrey-Honoria, a girl two years older. As both children's birth parents had bestowed names upon them before giving them up, and as Bridget and Connor wanted to respect the birth parent's wishes, but still wanted to name the children themselves, they had their names legally changed to the double first names they have today. Though Jasper-Declan's first name is legally just that, his parents and sister (and later, younger brother) always have and still call him only Declan, as they call Audrey-Honoria only Honoria.

Jasper-Declan was never a normal child. He stopped crying at a very young age- he preferred instead to stare at his parents with quiet intensity in his eyes until they gave him whatever he wanted. They quickly learned to accept this- after all, it was nice to not have a crying child in the house- and simply fed him when they felt he should be fed. As he grew older, however, his parents became worried. He spent the vast majority of his childhood alone- he often seemed content just to sit on his bed and stare at a wall. When his parents attempted to intervene, Jasper-Declan would just stare at them with that same quiet intensity. If they persisted in asking him what he was doing, he'd only say he was thinking. This was all he seemed to do- thinking this was a sign that their child was an intellectual, Bridget and Connor tried to encourage him with books, but Jasper-Declan would pick one up, read a sentence or two, and put it down, calling it boring. According to him, there was nothing new in any of the books- nothing he couldn't imagine himself, and that rendered the entire ordeal pointless to him.

Jasper-Declan entered school in the city in kindergarten and quickly showed his teacher just how different he was. His habitual 'thinking spells', as his parents called them, continued in school, often in the middle of class. While the other children learned their alphabet and basic arithmetic, Jasper-Declan never quite seemed to be present. However, when it came time to show the teacher what he had learned, he always performed perfectly- generally better than most of the class. Evidently he was absorbing the information, despite his appearing to be lost in space. He really seemed to come alive, though, during recess. Jasper-Declan had rarely gone outside before school began- his parents were overprotective, and generally kept him in a stroller when they did take him outside- and took an instant shine to movement and fresh air. He never wanted to play with the other children, though- when one would ask him to play with them, he would generally respond with silence and staring eyes until they went away- and eventually they stopped asking. Instead, he ran- constantly, for the entirety of recess, barely stopping for anything. After recess, though, he was perfectly happy to sit back down and space out. Jasper-Declan also adored painting- though his art confused his parents and teachers. Though at that age most art the children produced looked like random scribbles, the other children generally called their pieces 'house' or 'car' or 'family' or some such. Jasper-Declan's paintings, on the other hand, were always random, abstract, dark scribbles, and when asked what they were of, he'd reply 'my mind'. That was the only thing, according to him, that he ever painted, and he'd continue those paintings through his childhood and adolescence.

As he grew older, Jasper-Declan came to have more problems in school. While he was still quite intelligent, he was clearly unsuited to written work- he seemed incapable of staying on task, answering long-answer questions with dithering statements that seemed to express his thoughts on the subject, sometimes answering the question and sometimes not. He did well on multiple choice exams- presumably because they didn't give him the opportunity to give anything but an answer that was either correct or not, and he scored highly on an IQ test he took in the fifth grade. His 2nd grade teacher recommended he be tested for ADD, and so he was taken to the psychiatrist, who doled out Ritalin without much questioning. Jasper-Declan stayed on the pills for about a year, but they did not seem to make the least bit of difference, so his parents, who disliked unnecessary medication to begin with, took him off them. They were used to his peculiarities and saw him as simply an unusual boy, not a sick one.

It was around this time that a third child came to the family- Tristan-Rory. This new addition put stress on their financial situation. Connor MacDermott had worked as a doctor in the city, so he made a good amount of money, but Bridget was unemployed and living in New York City was exceptionally expensive. Eventually they made the decision to move to St. Paul, Minnesota, which was Connor's hometown and where his parents still lived. At this time Jasper-Declan was about to start the 6th grade, his first year of junior high. It was during the preparation to move that Jasper-Declan came across a framed copy of his birth certificate, bearing his full name. Questioning his parents about this, they were forced to tell him that he was adopted, and that Jasper was the name his birth mother had given him. They also gave him the gold band his mother had left him, which he still wears on a chain around his neck to this day and never takes off. He accepted this with the perfect serenity that was a trademark of his, only bothered that his parents had never told him his real name. According to him, real names had real significance, and that meant the name Jasper meant something about him. From that day on, though his family would always call him Declan, he would introduce himself as Jasper-Declan, and tell others to call him by whatever name they felt was the real 'him'. His closest friends ended up referring to him as either Jazz, Dekky, or JD. One of the last things he did before leaving New York City was go to the beach for the first time. Deciding to teach himself how to swim, he stepped into the water and fell in love instantly, despite his inability to do much other than wade and dog-paddle. He started taking swimming lessons as soon as he got to his new home- according to him, the water made him feel free, the way running always did.

Now in junior high, Jasper-Declan hardly changed as the social scene changed around him. He continued running, painting what he called 'swirls of a tired mind', and taking swimming lessons. He also continued spacing out in class, doing perfectly on multiple choice exams and writing often entirely irrelevant answers to open response questions. Teachers were confused by him, but there was not much they could do- they talked to his parents, but all they got was a shrug and a 'that's just Declan'. Eventually teachers gave up, passing him with Cs as a median between his exceptional test scores and his impossibly strange written work. It was at this time that Jasper-Declan made his first real friends- members of the skater clique, who evolved as time moved on into the 'stoners'. They found Jasper-Declan's introspective and altogether unusual nature intriguing, and Jasper-Declan simply liked having friends for the first time, though he was slightly bothered by their distaste for real, meaningful conversation- the other boys seemed to only want to talk about sports or girls or video games, things he had no interest in. However, the skaters did introduce him to skating- another physical activity he fell quickly in love with. The other boys told him that they'd never seen someone learn to skate so quickly, and he replied- "That's because you accepted falling and injury as an inevitability. You accepted defeat before it took you." Jasper-Declan had (and still hasn't) ever been hurt- not once. According to him, it was that philosophy that kept him safe. However, privately he is absolutely terrified by physical injury, though he doesn't see it as something that is capable of happening to him.

Jasper-Declan grew still older, and his skater friends grew older as well. As they entered high school and the other boys started experimenting with marijuana, Jasper-Declan found himself growing closer to them- the drug put their mindset closer to his. Even then, though, he felt like an 'other', an outsider in the world of humans. This almost saddened him- he was happy to be different, as he didn't particularly want to be part of the inane chatter that the other boys took part in, but he would've liked to feel more included. Still, he walked through life with absolute serenity, almost never shifting from a calm, blank expression. He is often overly formal for a boy of his age, thanks partially to his lack of experience with other children and teenagers. He continued skating, running, swimming (eventually joining the swim team) and painting, and even as he grew to his current height- and even as girls started to show attraction to him- he never changed. He was always calm, always tranquil, never changing...always seemingly lost in the recesses of his mind.

Advantages: Jasper-Declan is quite intelligent. He thinks in an unusual way, helping him think of solutions to problems that others might never think of. He is quite athletic, and in particular he's a very fast runner. The student populace generally sees him as entirely harmless. He is quite capable of working with others and is willing to follow others if necessary. And he is capable of remaining absolutely calm in the most stressful of situations.

Disadvantages: Jasper-Declan has never been injured, and is terrified by the concept of injury- he is likely to freak out if he gets even slightly hurt. Since he doesn't believe he can be injured, he can take unnecessary risks. While he has no enemies in the school, his only friends are not particularly loyal to him. And his spacey nature could work against him, as he could be easily caught unawares if caught during one of his 'thinking spells'.

Designated Number: Male student no. 129

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Designated Weapon: Remington XP-100 (.221 Fireball) [x8 rounds]

Conclusion: Well, there's some potential here, but I really don't see it adding up to much. B129 will get hurt, likely sooner than later, and at that point he's doomed. The gun'll help for a while, but come on. Eight shots? He'll have to be very lucky or very good to make it past the first few days. Then again, maybe he'll prove me wrong. The creative thinkers are always so unpredictable, and so... amusing.

'The above biography is as written by Hollyquin. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Hollyquin

Kills: None

Killed By: Collar detonation

Collected Weapons: Remington XP-100 (.221 Fireball) (assigned weapon)

Allies: None

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Jasper-Declan, in chronological order.

The Past:


 * Mushie Tea

Pre-Game:


 * Down the back of the building
 * Hey, what kind of meat do you think they put in these burgers?
 * "A wretched hive of scum and villainy?" "Worse, high school students."

V4:


 * Come & See
 * Pearl and Destiny
 * Late Dawns and Early Sunsets
 * She Bopped
 * Revenge is Best Served Cold
 * Our Last Days As Children
 * Inevitability
 * The Birth and Death of the Day
 * First Breath After Coma

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Jasper-Declan MacDermott. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * Jasper, oddly, is a character who I think worked a lot better outside of an island setting. He wasn't bad; of Holly's characters, he was always my second favorite. The problem was, his difficulty accepting his own mortality and his logical mannerisms actually generated more conflict and plot potential in a normal setting, where they intersected with his chosen group of friends in a more subtle and nuanced fashion. Jasper was the straight man for a ragtag group of stoners, and he basically knew it. That was pretty cool.

In game, though, Jasper suffered from not having much to do. He was apathetic enough that he didn't display much initiative, and this, when combined with his lack of understanding of how serious his situation was, actually robbed his story of a lot of the drama that could come from fear or a better idea of things on a level beyond the purely logical. It's not an issues I'd've predicted, and I don't think there was much of a way around it without dramatically altering Jasper's course (maybe letting him have a bad run in early on). He just ended up more of an observer/secondary character than anything else. My only real serious complaint besides that is he had some really awkward bits in his discussions with Alex regarding Hayley Kelly. It's hard to have your characters interact gracefully, and it really showed.

Jasper wasn't a very realistic character, and he's certainly not a concept I'd really want to see in a future game, but Holly did an admirable job keeping him consistent and he was a pretty good read aside from the aforementioned problems. - MurderWeasel